Contemporary Photography

Tag Archives: Image

I already shared a link with a photo to Paolo Pellegrin’s National Geographic feature, Cuba’s New Now, in the last Features and Essays post,but I also want to show how good the opening spread looks in the actual magazine. blog comment . Stunning.

Professional Week at Visa pour l’Image can be a daunting experience, especially if it’s your first time in Perpignan. At Photojournalism Links, we thought we would publish a short guide to the city, the festival and everything else that happens in Perpignan from 03 to 09 September, when thousands of photojournalists will converge on the French city.

In the map below, you’ll find the location of all the exhibitions and official festival events, but also a few other useful addresses such as where to find free Wifi or a supermarket. This map will be updated all week with addresses of the best restaurants, as well as the location of some open-to-the-general-public parties. If you are an agency, and are holding an event you would like us to flag up on the map, let us know at olivierclaurent[at]gmail[dot]com.

There are taxis at the airport, but they can be expensive if you’re alone (and, anyway, there are not that many taxis there – not at all). But the city runs a bus shuttle. It costs around 5 and will get you there in around 20 minutes. Don’t miss it though, it won’t wait for you to finish your cigarette.

I just arrived in Perpignan, what do I do now?

Go to Palais des Congrs to get your official accreditation. It will also be the opportunity to get information about talks and events, as well as a list of all the exhibitions and evening screenings.

What are these evening screenings that everyone talk about?

Each evening, from 9.30PM, the festival presents a series of photography screenings at Campo Santos (see map above). Each screening is made up of two parts – one part recounts what has happened around the world in the previous 12 months, while the second part is dedicated to individual projects and photographers. On Friday and Saturday, the screenings can be watched from Place de la Rpublique, allowing you to have dinner at a reasonable pace while watching the show.

But all I want to do is meet editors to show them my work. How do I do this?

There are twopredominant spots where you can meet photo editors: on the second floor of the Palais des Congrs or on the 7th floor of that same building. The second floor is the official spot, where agencies will have stands as part of the festival’s media centre. There you can find agencies such as Getty Images, Agence VU’, EPA, Cosmos and Polaris among many others. A lot of these agencies will have a schedule of available times for free portfolio reviews. But, be there early to secure a space – for example, in Getty Images’ case, if you don’t show up as soon as the doors of the Palais des Congrs open, you will have missed your chance: within minutes all of the day’s spots will have been booked.

Your second option is the 7th floor of the Palais des Congrs, where photo editors for publications as prestigious as TIME, Newsweek, The New York Times and many other worldwide titles from Geo to National Geographic will get a table and look at photographers’ work. Most often, they have already booked meetings with photographers they know they want to see, but they will also allow, sometimes, for a queue to form up to see the work of other photographers. My advice is to know who they are. Don’t show up in front of them without knowing who they are. directory submission . With a bit of research on Google or even Facebook you should be able find out who is who. And it’s not because you have an opportunity to meet with the international photo editor at TIME that you should actually show him your work – know whether you are ready to meet that person and ask yourself if you will be wasting his time or not. Sometimes, photo editors will appreciate being told: “I don’t think my work is good enough right now, but could I get your business card for when it is?”

What is this Caf de la Poste that everyone is talking about?

Caf de la Poste has become one of the festival’s emblematic meeting points (see map above). In the beginning, this is where photojournalists on show at Visa would gather for a drink in the evenings. And year after year, they would be joined by other photographers, young and old, until the wee hours of the morning. Since the Caf is open 23 hours a day during professional week, you can expect to find photographers there even at 5AM, especially on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Oh, and by the way, the Caf makes 90% of its annual revenues that one week – photographers do like their drinks!

If it’s your first year at Visa pour l’Image, be prepared. It. Is. Scary. You will find yourself among thousands of photographers who are, just like you, trying to make it in a very competitive market. My first year at Visa, five years ago, was dreadful. I didn’t know who to talk to, I didn’t know where to hang out, I didn’t know what to do. But don’t give up. Come back the following year, and the one after that. And you will get the hang of it. Also, next year is the festival’s 25th anniversary, and that’s one edition you won’t want to miss!

Any other tips?

Do not carry two camera bodies around your neck. This is a festival where you’re trying to sell your work and meet people, not report on it like you would a humanitarian crisis. If you really want to have a camera with you at all times, a compact camera will do, or even your iPhone. Also, you won’t run the risk of being mugged at 3am in the morning because you’re carrying $10,000 worth of kit around your neck…

If you are staying the entire week, remember this is the South of France: stores WILL be closed on Sundays. So if you’re planning a big feast on Sunday afternoon, visit the local supermarket on Saturday.

Find the time to see the exhibitions. Not only does it make sense, but it’s also a good way to find out what photographers like Stephanie Sinclair, Stanley Greene or Sebastian Liste look like – each exhibition carries a description of the work and a portrait of the photographer. It might come in handy when you’re at Caf de la Poste. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should introduce yourself to every single one of the exhibited photographers. Just like with photo editors, use your judgement before approaching someone.

Don’t miss Saturday night’s party at the Couvent des Minimes. Yes, the point system to get a drink is confusing, but it’s still good fun.

Perpignan isn’t far from the beach. You can get a bus from the Castillet or Palais des Congrs that gets you to Canet-Plage. The bus runs every hour, but don’t expect to get one past 8PM to go back to Perpignan, so don’t fall asleep on the beach! On your way back, there will be a lot of people trying to get back to Perpignan. Just remember that unlike in the UK and in the US, in France people don’t respect the queue, so expect to push and shove to get on the already-packed bus.

A new book Francesca Woodman, The Roman years: between flesh and film intimately (and academically) explores two particularly creative years during Francesca Woodman’s tragically short life. See more images, and read the book review in Lens Culture. carrera de fotografia .

When I first saw Justin Visnesky’s image on the new Collect.Give offering (benefiting the Sprout Fund in Pittsburgh, PA), it took me right back to my days with a 240 Volvo wagon filled with birthday balloons and made me want to see more.

Justin grew up in Pennsylvania, went to college in Jimmy Stewart’s hometown of Indiana, PA, and now lives in Pittsburgh. “He makes photographs of the simple, quiet times in life; taking the ordinary and making it something more, something for the keeping.” I am featuring two series, Jimmy Stewart Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and Sometimes You Just Know. Both are quiet explorations of place and moments.

Justin’s work has been published in a wide variety of online and in print magazines and has been exhibited throughout the US.

“Through the years Indiana (PA) has been something of tremendous importance in my life. It’s true there is something special about the place where you were raised—your hometown. I have found through the years during the times when I’ve been here in Indiana that almost every direction I look, and so many faces I see, immediately cause a picture to be formed of an event, a happening in my life that I remember well … I’ve settled down three thousand miles from Indiana. I’ve traveled to points in the world three times that distance. At times I’ve stayed away several years at a stretch, but I somehow have never felt that I was very far from here … somehow I don’t feel that I have ever been away. “– Jimmy Stewart

Sometimes You Just Know: In a broad sense, all of my work is an exploration of the ideas of home and origin in an effort to reconcile the divide between my past, present, and future. Specifically, the photographs in the series “Sometimes You Just Know” are an exploration of familiar spaces, inhabited and otherwise. They are a visual documentation of my feelings toward what I know or thought I knew. I’m not interested in freezing time, but freezing a feeling, that feeling you get in your gut when you know something is just right and may never be again.

Whether it’s a time of happiness or sadness, celebration or condolence, pictures capture the essence of a moment in time and preserve it, so we can look back and recall — if only for a second — how that moment made us feel.

For this reason, photographs tend to elicit strong reactions. And for the picture-holder, these mementos are also deeply personal, representing a life left behind, a new beginning, or a rest stop in our fast-paced lives.

Here, LightBox curates a crop of images that give us a glimpse into others’ memories. These are photos of photos — a nostalgic, if not somewhat contemplative look into a world within a world, where blissful instants are lost among a sea of uncertainty, and moments from the past are frozen in the present, stark in the contrast between then and now.

Some of the most emblematic photos of photos from the past year came from Japan, as family portraits smiled up from among the post-tsunami dust and debris. The photographs pictured are reminiscent of lives that were lost — either by death or through the sheer magnitude of this disaster — with only the vast unknown remaining.

In Libya, photos of burning, destructed images of Muammar Gaddafi diverged from framed pictures of the fallen dictator that were constantly brandished by his supporters. Back in the U.S., photos of lost loved ones were posted alongside their names at the 9/11 Memorial, in New York City, in a tribute to people who will never be forgotten. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, mourners paid their respects to actress Elizabeth Taylor by surrounding her picture with flowers on her Hollywood Walk of Fame Star.

These photos of photos leave us reminiscing about those pictured, and what their lives must have been like before everything changed. But even the tattered remains of photographs can’t erase what lies in the mind, where memories flourish undisturbed and these moments are never forgotten. —Erin Skarda

Head over to John Stanmeyer’s blog to read the first in a series of in-depth posts about shooting for Nat Geo from the initial pitch to the finished product.

Part I

The QuestionWhats it like photographing a National Geographic story?Its a question frequently asked and to be honest, a rather intriguing one because a National Geographic story the process from beginning to conclusion is not always what we might think.

At West 18th Street check out Joel Sternfeld’s A Railroad Artifact, 30th St, May 2000 the first work in Sternfeld’s project Landscape with Path, which documented the High Line before it was converted. This image, which celebrates the transformation of the High Line into an urban walkway, can be seen on a large 25-by-75 foot billboard. Sternfeld has invited two other artists, Robert Adams and Darren Almond, to pick up where he left off and create new work. Adams and Almond’s work will be exhibited on the same billboard in August and October respectively.

Another Joel Sternfeld project, Oxbow Archive, that meditates on seasonality in the age of climate change, was featured in Aperture magazine 192.